‘People think it was all set plays and throw-ins at Stoke. It wasn’t. Tony Pulis recruited a team of characters who were tough and hard to beat, but we could play’ Rory Delap on the Potters’ other side under Pulis

Never has a Premier League team had more cliches thrown their way than Tony Pulis’ vintage Stoke City of the late 2000s and early 2010s.

Whether it’s questioning Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo’s ability to perform on a cold, rainy night in the Potteries, or being written off as a team of agricultural bruisers and set-piece behemoths, Stoke fans of that era heard it all.

But according to former Stoke midfielder Rory Delap, this physicality on its own was not enough to see the Potters establish themselves as a Premier League team and enjoy a ten-year spell in the top flight.

Rory Delap on Stoke City’s other dimension

“The owner and the manager have to take a lot of credit, because Stoke were stuck in a rut in the Championship, but they made a decision to put money in without going stupid," Delap tells FourFourTwo when asked what it was like to help Stoke cement their top flight status.

“Tony Pulis recruited a team of characters who would fight for everything and fit in with how Stoke wanted to be viewed – tough and hard to beat, but we could play.

“Peter Crouch, Jermaine Pennant, James Beattie, Matty Etherington and Kenwyne Jones were all very good footballers. People think it was all set plays and throw-ins. It wasn’t.”

And talking of cliches, no chat about this era with former Republic of Ireland international Delap is complete without a mention of his bullet-like long throws, which regularly caused chaos in Premier League defences.

Once it became clear how dangerous a weapon this was, teams would often look for innovative ways to try and stop Delap in his tracks.

“West Ham and Burnley brought the advertising boards in,” Delap recalls. “We had towels to dry the ball, and teams would get ballboys to throw them into the stands.

“Hull put it out for a corner rather than a throw-in – by that stage we’d scored more goals from corners than throw-ins! Dean Windass was the funniest one, he started warming up in front of me and managed to get a yellow card!”

There was far more to Delap than his ability to hurl the ball into the mixer though, as the former Carlisle hopeful is quick to point out.

“I would never have played nearly 600 games if all I could do was throw it,” he adds. “I’ve never been one to praise myself, but I was 31 before people really started to ask me about the throw.

“I don’t know what I was good at before that, but I must have been good at something.”